Ministry of Human Resources Development Current Affairs

The Ministry of Human Resources Development (HRD) in collaboration with Ministry of External Affairs has approved ‘Study in India’ programme to attract foreign students to pursue higher education in India. The programme is similar to initiative launched by Australia, Malaysia, Singapore and Canada. It aims at boosting country’s share of international students and subsequently, improve global reputation and rankings of Indian educational institutions.

Study in India programme

Objectives

Encourage more foreign students to choose India as destination for higher education.

Double India’s market share of global education exports from less than 1% to 2%.

Improve global ranking of Indian educational institutes.

Features

The programme will provide meritorious foreign students fee waiver and scholarship. It will target students from 30 countries, primarily in Asia and Africa, including Nepal, Vietnam, Saudi Arabia, Kazakhstan, Nigeria, Malaysia, Thailand, Egypt, Iran, Kuwait, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Rwanda, among others.

Government will offer complete fee waiver to top 25% meritorious applicants, 50% fee waiver to the next 25% applicants and 25% waiver to the next 25% foreign students. The proposed fee waiver and scholarship will be decided by institute concerned based on predefined structure. The institutes concerned will bear expenditure on fee waiver based on cross-subsidisation or through its existing funding. The seats for foreign students will not affect number of seats which are meant for Indian students in any educational institute.

Background

The government, at present, permits provision of 10% to 15% supernumerary seats for foreign students in higher education. This provision remains largely underutilised across universities and colleges. Currently, India is home to about 45,000 international students, which accounts for just 1% of global student mobility. It was one the reason for Indian institutes lower global rankings. By launching Study in India programme, government hopes to attract 1.5 lakh to 2 lakh international students by 2022.

The Ministry of Human Resources Development (HRD) has approved ‘Study in India’ programme to attract foreign students to pursue higher education in India. Government has approved expenditure of Rs. 150 crores for programme for two years 2018-19 and 2019-20 which will be primarily for brand promotion activities.

Study in India programme

Objectives

Encourage more foreign students to choose India as destination for higher education.

Double India’s market share of global education exports from less than 1% to 2%.

Improve global ranking of Indian educational institutes.

Features

The programme will provide meritorious foreign students fee waiver and scholarship. The proposed fee waiver and scholarship will be decided by institute concerned based on the predefined structure. The institutes concerned will bear expenditure on fee waiver based on cross-subsidisation or through its existing funding.

Under it, 100% waiver of tuition fees will be only for the top 25% students, 50% waiver of tuition fees only for the next 25% students, 25% waiver of tuition fees only for the next 25% students and no waiver of tuition fee for remaining 25% of students. The programme will not affect number of seats which are meant for Indian students in any educational institute.

Background

In past couple of years, premier Indian institutes have not featured in top 100 in any of global rankings. One of the reasons is that global rankings also consider number of foreign faculty and foreign students studying in educational institute. In Times Higher Education Ranking 2018, top spot has gone to University of Oxford where 38% population is of Indian students. On contrary, Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru has only 1% population of International students. As per existing Government framework, there is provision of 10-15% supernumerary seats for foreign students in educational institutes.